A CPU cooler can be very cheap, very expensive and can even cost you up to 100 euros. For this article we tested 39 current CPU coolers and try to find out which one has the best cooling, is the quietest or ideally which one excels at both.

Every processor you can currently buy comes bundled with a standard cooler, but normally these are not the best at keeping your temperatures down and definitely not the quietest models on the market. A boxed cooler is designed to keep your processor at an acceptable temperature under normal use and on the standard settings. If you are looking to overclock your CPU it is best to invest in a better form of cooling, the same goes if you wish to keep you PC as silent as possible.

The last time we tested a large amount of CPU coolers was around 18 months ago, and in the meantime most manufacturers have introduced newer models. For this test we chose 39 different coolers that are currently available, varying in price between ?22 and almost ? 100. We have tested all models on cooling capacity and on noise levels, and have calculated a efficiency score based on the results. This score will indicate if a model can combine decent cooling performance with low noise levels.